By Elizabeth J. West , Georgia State University/The Conversation

Though we often discuss World War I through the lens of history, we occasionally do it through literature. When we do, well invariably go to the famous trilogy of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald the authors most representative of Americas iconic Lost Generation . Their work is said to reflect a mood that emerged from the ashes of a war that, with its trail of carnage , left survivors around the world with a despairing vision of life, self and nation.

The anxiety and hopelessness of the Lost Generation has become embedded in literary and cultural history. But for black artists, writers and thinkers, the war meant something entirely different: It spawned a transformation of the way African-Americans imagined themselves, their past and their future.

With Africa as a source of inspiration, a New Negro emerged out of the ruins of the Great War not broken and disenchanted, but possessed with a new sense of self, one shaped from bold, unapologetically black models.